by Leslie Glass
"Red Rose is all we got. That okay?" the waiter asked.
She wrinkled her nose and nodded. All teas were not created equal.
When the ordering was done, Harry's shoulders relaxed a little and he leaned back in his metal chair. "I'm going to tell this to you, no one else, okay?"
Mike shook his head. It didn't work that way, and Harry knew it.
"Why are you looking at me like that? I loved the guy. I was the shlepper, never made more than detective third grade. Bernie made good. I would never hurt a hair on his ugly head. I worshiped him, okay? What do you got?"
"We got a few questions," Mike said.
"Okay, so ask." Then he started answering before Mike had time. "I came to the party. I wasn't feeling so good after all that heavy food. I didn't want to go home so I stayed in Manhattan with a friend, okay?"
"What friend?" Mike asked.
"This isn't for public consumption, so keep it quiet, okay?"
"What friend?" Mike raised his own eyebrows.
"Her name's Cherry. Hey, a little respect. Don't laugh; she's a business associate."
"What kind of business do you have with Cherry, Harry?" April coughed out the question through a bad case of the giggles and avoided Mike's eyes. Even so, she could see his shoulders shaking. Cherry and Harry. Everyone was going to have fun with this one. And poor Carol didn't have a clue.
"I'm in the horse-racing business." Harry stretched for some dignity and failed.
"Has Cherry got a number, Harry?" April asked.
"Look, she's a breeder, okay? This is completely legit."
"Cherry is a breeder? She's breeding for you?" This was another new one. Bernardino was gone and buried, and Mike and April were cracking up with the comic relief of Cherry breeding for Harry.
"Cut it out. She breeds thoroughbreds for racing."
"So what's your involvement with Cherry?" Mike couldn't help repeating the name and drawing out the two syllables into three.
"I've been looking at a horse. In fact, I bought one." He beamed with the pride of ownership.
"You bought a racehorse?" It took a second to digest this. April and Mike eyed each other, the laughter gone. "How much do thoroughbreds go for these days?" Mike asked.
Harry squinted, considering the question. "Not a lot, a few hundred thou. But we think he's promising. Warlord is his name." Harry's one long eyebrow did a dance. He was beginning to have some fun of his own.
"Harry, where did you get a few hundred thousand dollars for a horse called Warlord?" Mike inhaled on the absurdity.
"I got it from Bernie, God rest his soul." Harry crossed himself.
"Yeah," April cut in.
The pizza and meatball hero came. The hero was huge. Harry was in no hurry to wolf it down. For a suspect in the interview game there was pretty much only one trick: Keep mum on the important stuff, and nobody could do a thing about it. Detectives could bring a suspect in, keep him, let him go, then bring him in again. Fishing expeditions were annoying and time-consuming for a person being examined again and again but couldn't hurt anyone with the nerve to hold out. Lawyers could stop the questions, but only for a while. If cops had no secrets on a guy, no muscle in the form of jail-time threats to use against him, there wasn't a thing they could do short of beating him up to get him to give.
Harry Weinstein had been a cop for a long time. He didn't need a lawyer to help him obfuscate. Eight hours after Bernardino was finally laid to rest, he was still cruising for a bruising, completely comfortable with the situation. He was retired, on half pay for life. No one could fire him or put him in jail or hurt him in any way he cared about. He wasn't going to give.
After lunch Mike and April put him in the car and drove around for a while, taking turns hammering away at him. Then Chief Avise had a little chat with him downtown at headquarters. He didn't talk for the chief of detectives either, and didn't have to miss his bedtime. Everyone was tired. Around ten p.m. he went home wagging a tail he pretended not to see. He had an appointment to come back to the Sixth Precinct but didn't know it yet. His mood was high.
Twenty-seven
The next morning bright and early Harry had a surprise visit from two uniforms in a squad car, and got a free ride downtown to where April and Mike were waiting to do it all over again.
"You know we slept on your story and it's just plain disrespectful," Mike said. "You hurt our feelings."
"How so, my man?"
"We're not your man. We're your only hope here. You expect us to believe that Bernardino gave you a suitcase full of cash to buy a freaking horse? Come on." Mike had had a good night's rest and didn't give a shit how long it took to break Harry down.
"It's what happened, pally." Harry shrugged.
"No paperwork, nothing? What a friend!"
Harry shrugged some more.
"Listen, I heard different. I heard you and Bernardino were on the outs."
"Who said that? I never heard that." Harry feigned amazement.
"The way I heard it, he blew you off a long time ago, so what happened to change his mind?"
"What can I tell you? We went back a long way together. I gave him all the particulars on Warlord. He started slow, but he was picking up. A real beauty. It was a good deal."
"Who started slow? Bernardino or the horse?"
"The horse started slow. He was a late bloomer."
"So Bernardino gave you money for a slow horse. Why would he do that?"
"Bernie was like that, real heart-of-gold kind of guy. He believed in dreams. You know that about him, right?" He locked eyes with April.
"When did he fulfill your dream, Harry?" she asked.
Harry smiled. "I don't know, a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember what day."
"You can't remember getting a suitcase full of money. Can't remember when your dream came true. Come on." Mike laughed. "You're an insult to the field."
"Honest. I'm retired. I don't know one day from another."
But Mike knew they had a problem, and so did April. There was no mention of any meeting between Bernardino and Harry in Bernardino's daily calendar, and certainly no file on horses. Not any kind of horses. Bernardino had been a careful man. If he was going to spring for a racehorse, the odds were his files would be full of horse statistics, or spreadsheets-whatever they did with horses. But there was none of that. Bernie didn't have horse pinups in his file like his house pics. So many houses, all in different styles, different locations. Bernardino wouldn't purchase an item cold. He wasn't that kind of individual. Mike figured Bernie hadn't known about any horse. He changed tack and hammered the other subject.
"We need to talk to your girlfriend, Harry. Clear up a few things."
"Talk to her. Who's stopping you?" Harry lifted his shoulders, saw his hands fly up in front of his face, and took the opportunity to examine his nails. He could hardly control his grin. He was enjoying himself. No one could touch him.
"I would talk to her if I had a last name, a number," Mike said.
"I'm old. I forgot."
"Harry. Be easy on yourself. Give us a name. We're going to find her anyway. Down the road it's going to get nasty. You know how it is. If everything's on the up and up, nothing can hurt you. You got a gift horse. Okay we'll forget the gift tax. I give you my word. This is not about the money, you know that. Money…" Mike lifted his own shoulders and let the word trail off. "Money between friends. That's sacred. We won't touch it. Just give us the name." Mike glanced at April. She tapped her wrist. She was going out for a break.
"Mikey, I've been married forty-five years. Cherry's just a friend, but my wife is everything to me. You know how it is; I just can't do it."
Mike did know how it was. He'd hit a brick wall. But he had a method for finding people, and pretty much it always worked. "Yeah, pally, I do know how it is. See you later."
"Can I leave now?"
"What do you think?"
Mike and April left the interview room together. Mike called Marcus Beame o
n his cell. "I need you to find someone," he told him.
"No problem, Lieutenant, who?"
"Female known as Cherry. Breeds horses. I'd guess around fifty, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, but not much. I don't have much more than that. She's a known associate of Harry Weinstein."
"Harry's girlfriend?" Marcus laughed.
"You got it."
"You got a place to start looking for Harry's Cherry?" Beame joked.
Mike clicked his tongue. "You know, he said he'd spent Wednesday night with her in the city, but I'm thinking she doesn't live here. Try upstate somewhere. Horse country. Nothing fancy, though. Harry's a lowlife."
"Okay. I can do that. Work back from Harry."
"You might try checking horse-breeding records, too. I think thoroughbreds are registered with the racing association-I don't know, some association. Cherry's got a horse called Warlord. See if she sold it to anyone."
"Anything else, sir?"
"That's it. And I don't want to know how you do it-whatever you have to do, just get her in here."
"Do I have twenty-four hours, boss?"
Mike checked his watch. "Yeah, sure. Before noon tomorrow would be real good."
April met him on the stairs a few minutes later. He was on his way to the men's room. "Something odd has come up."
"Oh, yeah."
"The same number came up on both Bernardino's and Jack Devereaux's caller ID list."
Mike frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Beats me," she said.
Twenty-eight
Jack Devereaux was an angry man. The press and the cops had made him a prisoner in his own home. He was stuck on the sofa with his sweetheart plying him with food he didn't want to eat, antsy as hell. He wanted to go out to eat. He wanted to walk, and he wanted out of where he was. His bruises were healing, and his broken arm itched. He was beginning to think of fleeing but felt he was too famous to move. It was not a good situation.
His father had left him a town house on Sutton Place, and another house in California. Both had heavy security, but he resisted moving into a world from which he'd been excluded for so long. To be sure the Manhattan house was amazing. The classic four-story brick building on Fifty-seventh Street had been gutted and redesigned for a contemporary sensibility. The rooms flowed one into another and even from one floor to another. Staircases seemed to be suspended on air.
He and Lisa had visited there exactly once. Lisa had been intrigued by the huge kitchen, the mirrored ceiling in the master bedroom, the terrace on the East River, and also by the obscenely large master bathroom. The bathroom took up half a floor and was tiled in three different colors of marble. The shower had no walls. The Jacuzzi was a custom design; its faucets looked like real gold. The attention to detail in the house was so opposite to the lack of attention paid to him that Jack reacted to the tour by vomiting in his late father's powder room toilet. He hadn't gone back. But now the idea of having resources was beginning to jell. He wanted some of that money so he could hide.
But it wasn't so easy. He couldn't exactly get a billion-dollar check and suddenly become the head of a giant corporation. It didn't work like that. There were little things like procedures, probate. Everything took time. He knew that from when his mom had died. In a huge estate like this, the feeding frenzy among the lawyers would drag it all out. Probate hadn't been filed yet, but Jack had been informed that he could take his trusteeship in the company foundation immediately. He could also request a deposit or something, a few mil to tide him over until the estate was settled. Since his visit to the hospital, he was getting calls from his new "friends," the lawyers at the firm of Gibson, Frank, and Field urging him to get out of town, and he wanted to go. But he was resistant to leaving the only life he'd ever known. He didn't want to lose himself.
On Monday after the murdered cop's funeral, he was wavering. On Tuesday when he got an early-morning call from Al Frayme, he still hadn't moved. Lisa wasn't quitting her job anytime soon. She was back at work, and he was alone again, bummed out, glad to get a friendly call.
"What's up, Al?"
"How are you holding up? We're worried about you," Al said. "Anything we can do?"
"Thanks, but as I told you Friday, there's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."
"Good. Then business. You're not going to let me down next week, are you?"
"About what? You know I can't do gifts yet."
"No, no, nothing like that. You're speaking at the reunion, remember? You're going to be okay for that, aren't you?"
"Oh, yeah. With all this I forgot about it. Gee, I'm not sure. I might have a conflict out of town next week." Speaking on any subject was the last thing in the world he wanted to do now. No way.
"Oh, God, don't welsh on me. I'm counting on you."
"Look, Al, what can I say? I got hurt last week. I just don't know if I'm up for it."
"But it's so fucking impressive. Everyone is dying to hear about it. What a New York story. Saving a cop, fighting off a killer… it's amazing."
"Oh, I really did a job on him," Jack said bitterly.
"Oh, come on, don't be so modest. I heard you hurt him bad."
"It's all a crock. I didn't get anywhere near him."
"Not what my sources say. We're going to write you up in the magazine. Billionaire alum, New York hero. What kind of Good Samaritan story is that?"
"It's great, but I'm not interested."
"Oh, come on, it would be so good for both of us."
"Al, I'm spooked, okay? I'm not interested in being described as a hero when there's a killer out there."
"I'm sure he doesn't read the alumni magazine."
"Very funny."
"Come on, lighten up. People like you are exactly what the university desperately needs. Don't let us down."
"Not right now, okay, Al?"
"What can I do to change your mind? How about a limo for the event?"
"I'm only a few blocks away. I could walk. That's not the issue." Jack was trying hard to be nice.
"Then what's the issue?"
"I told you I'm nervous. Call me a wimp, whatever.
I don't want to do the event. It's not safe." Jack gazed out at the reporters downstairs. He had a lot of trouble going out.
"The university could protect you, I promise."
"Don't make promises. That's not the issue."
"What's the issue, Jack? You're one of us. I want you to know we're here for you. It matters to us that you're happy, feeling secure. The president, everybody. We want you happy. We can keep you safe."
"Well, tell everybody I'm happy, but I have another call coming in." Jack cut him off. He didn't want to hear any more people telling him how important he suddenly had become. He wasn't doing the reunion, period.
His call waiting kicked in.
"Hi, it's April Woo."
"Oh, hello." That was all he could manage even for her.
"Listen, can you come in today? I need you to look at somebody."
"Who?" Then he got excited. Maybe it was over.
"A guy." The pretty cop was noncommittal.
"Look, I'm under siege here. Is this for real?"
"What's going on?"
"The reporters won't go away. Don't these guys have anything else to do?"
"Everybody's trying to flush you out of your little pond into the big sea where you belong. You're the only guy in the world who prefers a walk-up to the Ritz. And you're a hero. It's all news. Do you want me to send a car for you?"
He wasn't a hero, but everybody wanted to send a car for him. Why wasn't he impressed?
"Well, it would be nice to get there without a confrontation in front of the building," he murmured. On the other hand, it wouldn't be so nice to see a clip of himself getting into a squad car on the evening news.
The detective read his mind. "How about an unmarked car?" she said.
"That would be great. Do you have the man who attacked you? If you had him, it would be a huge relief.
"
"Yeah, for all of us. The whole city. A car will be there in ten minutes, maybe eleven if the traffic is bad. Officer Maureen Perry will be your driver."
Seven minutes later a black Buick pulled up in front of his door building. The driver was a blond woman in uniform. The uniform blew his cover.
"Good morning, sir," she said, a little surprised when he charged out of the building, dove into the front seat next to her, and slammed the door. After that she didn't say a word, only nodded when he got out and thanked her for the ride.
As he headed into the Sixth Precinct his arm itched badly in its cast, and he had the feeling of rage that had been flashing on and off in him like painful power surges ever since his father died and stole his identity. Now absent fathers and murderers were all mixed up in his mind. Maybe the absent father was the murderer. All he wanted was to be normal again-to watch the Yankees battle the Mets, to make love to Lisa, to build his little business his own way. Normal.
Instead he couldn't get out of being an item on the news. His photo, inset next to a larger one of his father, had been on the cover of Time magazine two weeks ago. He was followed around by reporters. Yesterday the cop's funeral had dredged it up again. And now he was in the center of a murder investigation. Every talk-show host wanted him on TV talking about it. He didn't see how rich was good. It got him into this, but it couldn't get him out.
Inside the precinct, the desk lieutenant gave him a quick glance and knew right away who he was. "Mr. Devereaux?"
"Yes."
"They're waiting for you upstairs. First door."
Jack found the stairs and took them two at a time. There was nothing wrong with his legs, and he was in a hurry to see who was in custody. At the top of the stairs the door to the detective unit was open and people were spilling out. With them came a cloud of cigarette smoke. So much for the law against smoking in government buildings.
"I'm looking for Sergeant Woo," he told a skinny man with a pencil mustache and a gun at his waist who was sitting on the first desk with his cell phone pressed against his ear.